Chased by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tan frowned. “But you still serve the king?”

  Roine nodded. “As Athan. Not as a warrior.”

  Tan leaned back. Roine was Theondar. His mother was Zephra, a powerful wind shaper. And Amia the Aeta could shape spirit. More than ever, he felt lost, worse than he ever felt after learning of his father.

  “What do I have to do with your search?” Amia asked. She watched Tan as she spoke, probably sensing the struggle raging through him.

  “At first I wasn’t certain. I hadn’t considered the Aeta. It wasn’t until I met Tan and he told me about the Aeta chased from Incendin that I considered the possibility. Then I heard of the hounds and I feared I wasn’t the first to think of it.” He looked from Tan to Amia. “I think a senser of such strength could find the artifact. Such strength would doubtlessly make her a shaper. That’s why they pursued you.”

  “It don’t think it’ll work.”

  Roine tilted his head. “I’m not certain it will, either. But this device,” he said, pointing toward his saddlebags, “was shaped by those who wield the elementals. All of them.”

  Amia shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me try explaining it differently. A shaping carries a certain signature,” he began, “something that can be felt and detected by those who know how and where to look. If you are skilled enough—or strong enough—you can trace the shaping, follow it, either along its course or back to the shaper.”

  Amia began to nod a little. “I think I understand.”

  Roine smiled. “I hoped you would,” he answered. He turned and went back to his saddlebag and retrieved the golden box once more. “This device amplifies that shaping so that one who is skilled enough can use it to follow its course.”

  “You said all the elementals were used in its shaping?” Tan asked.

  Roine nodded. “Recent warriors are thought to be able to use all the elementals,” he began, “but there hasn’t been a warrior who can shape spirit in a thousand years.” He shook his head. “It was these warriors who made this box and the reason it has never fully worked for me.”

  “Then why do you think I can help?” Amia asked.

  “I’m unable to even sense spirit. I could follow the others. Some of the shapings were stronger than others. Wind particularly. Water. I have some strength with earth, not like some, but this device never had much strength with earth.” He swallowed. “And fire had been quite strong—possibly the strongest of them. That’s why Fur thinks he can track the shaping, I suspect. Now none of them work. When the device was damaged, it was no longer safe for me to use.”

  “Then why Amia?”

  “I don’t know if the spirit thread has been damaged. That’s why she’s needed.”

  “What you ask requires a skill I don’t think I have.”

  “You have to try.”

  “Why must this artifact be found?”

  Roine inhaled deeply. “If Incendin reaches it first…not just the barrier will fall. This artifact, if it’s half of what scholars think it might be, can’t reach Incendin. I’d rather see it destroyed than that.”

  Amia shook her head. “You haven’t answered the question.”

  There was a surge of energy with the words, a directive, and Roine smiled. “You don’t need to shape me.”

  Tan felt whatever it was Amia had done. He’d felt it before.

  “Many scholars have searched for it. None have succeeded.”

  “Why now? Why you?” Tan asked.

  Roine sighed. “Shaping is changing.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it more than that—I’m no archivist—but our shapers have grown weaker. Even sensing is weaker. But this,” he said, tapping the golden box, “if the archivists are right, this could change that.” He sighed. “As to why now? It’s not just now. I’ve been searching for nearly a decade. Even more time before that, trying to understand the damn compass. I don’t know why Incendin suddenly makes a push when I’m finally getting close.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. “How is shaping changing?” Tan asked.

  “Questions for those who study such things, not me. In the kingdoms, they’re known as archivists, and they have access to records dating back over a thousand years. But what they tell me is that with each generation, our connection to the elementals grows weaker. Once, creatures like the lisincend would not have challenged even a strong shaper. Now full warriors struggle against them. Given enough time, it could be that we will not see another warrior again.”

  Roine turned to Amia. “Please. You must try. Focus upon the box, upon the symbol for spirit. Push your focus outward, as if you were performing a shaping, and listen, as if sensing. All I need to know is whether spirit still responds.”

  “And if I’m not strong enough?”

  Tan touched her arm. She didn’t pull away. “I’ve seen what you can do. I didn’t know what it was I was seeing, but you shaped Lins. And I felt you shaping the lisincend. It was working, if only for a moment.”

  “You tried shaping the lisincend?” Roine asked.

  Amia nodded.

  “It should not work,” Roine said.

  She shook her head. “It didn’t.”

  “I think it could have,” Tan said. “Whatever you did made it angry. That must mean you’re strong enough to do this.”

  Amia stared at the box for long moments before finally nodding. “I’ll try.” She didn’t sound as if she expected it to work.

  Roine nodded. “Thank you.”

  Amia sat upon the nearest rock with the gold box resting on her lap. She rotated it until one of the points of the star was directed at her. Her face slackened and her eyes lost focus until they closed completely. Tan felt the slow sizzling of energy, a gradual building of pressure in his ears.

  As the energy rose to the point where Tan’s hair felt like it would stand on end and the pressure in his ears had grown to a sharp stabbing pain, there was a whooshing release as it shot away from the rocky cavern and up into the mountains.

  Tan wondered why he could almost see it.

  “It’s done,” Amia said. She sounded more fatigued than she had been at any point since leaving Velminth.

  “What happened?” Roine asked.

  Roine sensed nothing. How was it that Tan sensed what Amia had done? Was it tied to the shaping she had done on him, the command urging him to protect her? Had she bound him to her somehow?

  She shook her head. “This device directed my shaping,” she answered, fumbling with the last word. “Pulling it from me and sending its energy out and up the mountain.”

  Roine looked around. “Can you follow it?”

  If Tan closed his eyes, he could follow it.

  Amia nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then we need to go.”

  “Let her rest, Roine.” The voice in his mind whispered to him. Protect me. He recognized the shaping now and did not mind the silent reminder; he would have done what he could to protect her anyway. “She’s tired. After everything she’s been through, she deserves that.”

  A moment of compassion lingered on Roine’s face. “Can you feel it?” he asked Tan.

  Tan listened, thinking Roine asked him to use his earth sense. The night was lightening and the first slivers of daylight had begun to creep through the sky, an orange hue to the clouds. The wind had died at some point and the air that had been so cool earlier in the night had grown warmer. Too warm for the early morn. Then Tan knew what Roine had sensed.

  The lisincend were coming.

  22

  The Lisincend Attack

  Roine hurried them toward the horses and he climbed atop his mount, motioning to Tan and Amia to do the same. He started away from the shelter, riding his horse in the direction Amia had indicated.

  “Are you going to let me ride with you?” she asked. She seemed genuinely uncertain how he’d answer.

  “Can’t you sense my answer?” He tried to sound playful, but came off more abruptly than intended.

&nbs
p; “I’d understand if you said no. After what I did…” She sighed. “That’s why we have the Accords. The earliest of my people didn’t hesitate to…shape…others to do what they wanted. That’s not what I wanted with you.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you to the lisincend.” Just thinking about it bothered him. And there was still that echo in the back of his mind, the quiet command.

  Protect me.

  “Only because of what I did.”

  Tan held her dark gaze with his eyes and shook his head. “I would have done what I could to rescue you regardless of the shaping. It just serves as a reminder.”

  She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. “It is still with you, the shaping?”

  Tan nodded. Like a voice in his head, he could hear it whisper if he closed his eyes, felt its pull and knew he would struggle if he tried to refuse its call. “I can hear it if I try.”

  She shook her head. “That should not be. It should disappear and you certainly should not hear anything.”

  Tan shrugged. “I do.”

  She looked at him a moment before nodding. “If I haven’t said so before, thanks for saving me, Tan, son of Zephra.”

  He pulled Amia into the saddle behind him and she placed her arms around his waist, pulling herself into him. She was warm and soft and, in spite of everything she had been through, the destruction of her caravan and imprisonment by the lisincend, she smelled of lavender and lilacs. He was all too aware how Amia clung tightly to him.

  She chuckled then. The sound was soft and a hot whisper in his ear.

  She sensed him. How much would she know without needing to ask?

  He felt exposed…but didn’t mind. At least she couldn’t see him flush.

  Roine waited for them as they emerged from the rocky shelter. His eyes were closed and his face locked in concentration. His hands were slack at his side, fingers spread wide, and he breathed deeply. The horse beneath him was completely still.

  Tan felt a stirring in the air, like the sizzle of energy he had sensed as Amia had done her shaping, and felt the pressure building in his ears. This was a slow buildup, different than what Amia had done, and there was neither the force nor the pain he had sensed during her shaping. Then Roine inhaled deeply, suddenly exhaling, and the energy was released in a wave outward. Tan had never known anything like it before.

  Roine looked at Amia. “Which way?”

  Amia removed one hand from his waist and pointed up the slope. “Up.”

  Roine looked up the slope and Tan followed his gaze. A trail meandered up the rock, cutting between some of the towering pines and ash trees. He didn’t recognize these lands.

  How far had they come running from Velminth?

  “We should hurry,” Roine said.

  “Did your shaping tell you how far they were?”

  Roine looked at him with a strange and curious expression upon his face. His mouth pursed as if he had a question he wanted to ask but did not. Instead, he nodded. “Not a definite distance. More like a vague sense.” He looked down the slope. “Several lisincend.”

  “How many hounds?”

  Roine looked back to him and smiled. “You’ve faced one of the lisincend and survived, but ask about the hounds?”

  “I think we can outrun the lisincend. I’m not as certain about the hounds.”

  Amia shivered behind him. “I don’t wish to see either.”

  Roine watched them for a moment. “I don’t know how many hounds,” he said, and then turned his horse and spurred it forward. Tan and Amia followed, hurrying the horse up the slope after Roine. The climb was steep, though manageable, and led quickly upward. The sky began to lighten even more. The wind picked back up, sending hot gusts blowing through the trees.

  The harsh baying of the hounds startled them when it started. It came as a sudden chorus of calls, howls, and snarls.

  “They found where we stopped last night,” he called to Roine.

  He’d been riding ahead of them, silent as he rode up the slope. With Tan’s comment, he turned and nodded. “They’ve never really lost us.”

  “How’d they find us so easily?” Tan asked.

  “The hounds are relentless,” Amia answered. Her voice was soft in his ears yet filled his mind. The words carried to Roine’s ears as well, for the man nodded. “Once they have your scent, they never forget it and rarely give up.”

  “So they follow you?” Tan asked.

  He felt Amia shake her head behind him. “There were too many of us for them to have a clear scent of me.”

  Tan turned to look at her. Amia’s face was pleasantly close to his. “Me?” he asked. Was he the reason Nor had been destroyed? Had he led the hounds to it?

  “That’s what I fear,” she answered. “You said they attacked when you tracked them, that you were treed. Something scared them off, but they didn’t forget the scent.”

  “You should go with Roine. I won’t be the reason you are captured. Or the reason his mission fails.” Doing so meant certain death, but if he had led the hounds to Nor, didn’t he deserve it?

  Roine slowed and looked over to Tan. “Though noble, Tan, it wouldn’t matter. I fear these hounds have my scent, as well.”

  “How?”

  “The distraction in Velminth,” Roine said. “So it seems it doesn’t matter. We’ll continue forward.”

  “You aren’t concerned about the hounds?”

  “Hounds I can manage. Their lisincend masters present a different challenge altogether.”

  Tan shivered each time he heard the braying of the hounds. The day was fully light, though the clouds threatened rain again. The wind blew, alternating warm and cool. He suspected they managed to stay just ahead of the lisincend.

  What would happen when they had to rest? Did the hounds or the lisincend have the same needs?

  They stopped at a stream to rest the horses and let them drink. Roine pulled some stale bread from his saddle and passed it around. They each ate in relative silence. The hounds howling behind them were a constant reminder that they were being hunted. The air grew ever warmer as well. They did not stop for long.

  “Do you still sense it?” Roine asked.

  Amia nodded, closing her eyes and pointing. “Still up.”

  Tan felt the energy Amia created during her shaping on the box—could almost see it if he tried. Like a straight line up the mountain face, disappearing from view over the peak. If that was where they traveled, then they had a long climb left before them.

  “I don’t know that I’ll be able to find the pass from here,” Tan said.

  Roine looked over.

  “When we ran from Velminth, I…I lost my bearings,” he admitted.

  Roine smiled. “If we follow Amia’s shaping, it shouldn’t matter.”

  “If it does?”

  “Stick to the trail. It’s faster,” Roine said.

  They continued the slow switchback up the mountain. Roine began to look around more frequently, his eyes darting from side to side along the trail.

  Not far from the stream, there was a subtle flurry of brown movement, streaking so quickly that Tan wasn’t sure what he saw. Roine raised his hand and the ground trembled. At first just a tremor, but soon the ground on the slope below them started to slip and peel away, tumbling into a rockslide. A howl erupted, a harsh and pained sound, which was silenced as the rockslide moved farther downhill.

  “Was that—”

  Roine shushed him with a gesture.

  Tan had felt a tingling, like a sizzling across his skin, with the shaping.

  Roine closed his eyes and Tan again felt the steady buildup of energy quickly released, spreading out from them in a wave. Roine listened for long moment.

  “There are several others near,” Roine started, and then closed his eyes again. A low and steady rumbling began again, building like rolling thunder, far down the hill from them. A few pained cries followed. Roine’s mouth turned in a satisfied smile. “That should buy us a little more time.”

>   As they continued, Tan suspected each shaping taxed Roine more and more. He’d seen how weakened Amia had been with just a single shaping. Roine did several, each enough to trigger a landslide. What would happen if they encountered one of the lisincend? Would Roine still have strength to face it?

  “I don’t think we can continue much farther like this,” Amia whispered in his ear.

  Was there a sag to Roine’s shoulders that wasn’t there before? Tan wasn’t certain. They paused several more times and each time Tan felt the building pressure before it was released, followed by the low rumble of another rockslide. Roine was slowly eliminating the hounds chasing them, but each time he grew weaker.

  Did Roine spend himself too soon? Even if he did, what other choice did they have?

  By midday, the clouds thickened and darkened. Thunder started from the north, rolling toward them. With it came a heavy wind. Roine looked up to the sky, staring at it as if expecting something more than rain that never came, before shaking his head.

  Not long after, lightning struck. It repeated, loud crackles that fried the air followed by sharp claps of thunder. Roine closed his eyes and Tan felt the building pressure, more quickly this time and not as strong as earlier in the day. When it was released, it was directed up the mountain face, pressing out before fading.

  Roine listened for long moments before snapping his eyes open. “Off the path! Now!”

  Tan didn’t argue. They hurried into the light underbrush of the forest. Their horses had to move slower to avoid the tangles and roots, but were able to pick up speed across the level ground.

  As he wondered what Roine feared, a wave of heat answered his question. His eyes and mouth went dry. His skin felt boiled and tight.

  Roine kicked his horse forward, moving in front of Tan. He held his hand out before him. A gust of wind pressed forward, sweeping through the forest.

  One of the lisincend stood before them. The creature was horrible and immense, and radiated heat like a raging fire. A smile pulled at its lipless mouth and what Tan saw of the thick and scaled hide seemed as if it was peeling away. Its tongue lashed out quickly as it smiled at them. The creature wore dark black leather. No…that wasn’t quite right. Rather, the leather was so red that it appeared black, the shirt and pants pulled tight across the creature’s muscular frame.